A lot of our readers were disappointed, if not surprised. Wheeler previously worked as a lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries, and while some of his initial statements boded well for consumers, his latest comment was decidedly industry-friendly. As Brainling wrote: "The guy is a former lobbyist for the cable industry. What did people expect? He almost certainly got his job because the cable companies put him there (through other lobbying efforts), specifically to ram rod through anti-consumer/pro-cable rules. This is how America works in 2013 folks. We all better pray Google Fiber works out, because until someone breaks the Big Cable hegemony, you can expect them to go as anti-consumer as the law allows them to."

bburdge agreed: "Yup. Exactly as expected. He will make all these statements about being consumer friendly and for net neutrality, but then add small bits that slowly wear down what those things mean. So here we have 'Yes, net neutrality is great, I fully support it, really important. But you know, paying extra for premium service is not a big deal right, we do it all the time, first class on the airplane, or overnight shipping. That's not against net neutrality, it's just the market...' Sucks for us." ender2003 tried an analogy: "Let's paint a picture. Your house is connected to the city's water supply, for which you already pay a monthly fee (water bill). You "rent" a water hose to use to water your lawn, but then are told that you will have to pay more to use the hose depending on where the water is coming from. You can get water for no charge from the owner of the hose, or you can pay an extra fee to access the city's water. Does that make sense?"

It wasn't all outrage, though. "Yes, yes, slippery slope and all that, but it seems like people are jumping to conclusions," posullivan wrote. "The way I interpreted the statement was that services who have an interest in a dedicated connection (Netflix, high-bandwidth videoconferencing providers like in the article yesterday, etc.) would be able to buy such a dedicated, high-speed connection. In yesterday's article, we saw how the price of such a path is prohibitively high and actually impossible in some circumstances. I didn't think he said Netflix would have to use the line, which would violate net neutrality, but rather it would just be an option."

But Jevry was worried that whatever the ISPs would charge high-bandwidth services would be passed down to the consumers. "So... I am paying my ISP for a certain amount of bandwidth which they advertise. If I choose to use the entirety of that bandwidth for Netflix, I cannot use it for anything else. It's unclear how anyone can argue that ISPs should be paid more to provide exactly what they are currently contracted to be providing. Am I not entitled to the full bandwidth that they claim I've purchased?"

flunk thought there was a lesson to be learned here... for a particular group. "Well, this is a good reason to disconnect built-in mics. Although it is pretty impractical. It might be worth doing on a governmental level." But PlaceHolder continued to be a skeptic. "While an interesting theory, this is basically so much nonsense unless the malware recipient capability is already present on the machine, in which case why bother worrying about air gap jumping as you already have malware to be removing. Now if some [presumably] Chinese manufacturer builds in the capability to some new piece of hardware for nefarious purposes, then we have something to worry about... But even then you should be worried that you have devices listening (and broadcasting) without your knowledge... i.e. you're basically "bugged"...Otherwise... I say continue to follow safe computing practices and nothing new to see here...."

I have no doubt you can do a cheesy FSK modem over a notebook speaker and microphone. But in your nuclear fuel enrichment facility, it is not likely a computer there will be anything but a hand-built PC using carefully inspected components. You don't need a speaker or microphone equipped computer in such a facility. If anything, they are using commercial off the shelf secure SIP phones for communications.

And Ancalagon got to the heart of the matter: "How soon until this malware jumps to a human brain and we all become zombies?"

Yet another smartwatch

Lee Hutchinson received the Toq smartwatch from Qualcomm this week, and after opening it, he played with it for a bit in order to push out some first impressions. Sadly, those first impressions were of a watch that seemed, well, unimpressive. In Hands-on with the Qualcomm Toq smartwatch, Lee describes a wristband that needs to be cut to size, a somewhat fuzzy screen, and inconsistent touch response.

Chuckstar objected to the wristband. "Cutting the band to size... and the band contains electronics so it is essentially non-replaceable? What if I gain weight? What if I buy a new one next year and want to sell this one to someone with a bigger wrist? What if I simply decided I made it a little too tight and want it slightly looser? This just seems like a pretty big fail." And _fluffy wasn't sold on the features yet: "The ONE THING I want a smartwatch for is turn-by-turn GPS navigation while I'm riding my bike. So far none of them seem to offer that."

Stormspace was excited by the potential of the screen, "I was under the impression that this device was being marketed strictly to promote the mirasol display technology. This review seemed all software issues to me and those can be fixed. I'm all over the display technology as an alternative to AMOLED screens."

phoenix_rizzen had some thoughts about other ways that smartwatch makers could differentiate themselves:

A smartwatch is one of the few places I think a widescreen format (16:9 or even wider) makes sense. The wrist is only so high, but the arm is very long.

Instead of trying to shoehorn text and whatnot into a 1-2" square screen, let's move away from the "round watch face" and into the "widescreen on a wrist" phase. A 1.5" x 3" screen would be much nicer, especially for those of us that wear our watches along the bottom of the wrist (the flat part). Maybe make the strap movable in the horizontal to make it sit more comfortably (instead of screen centered on strap, move it to the left for wearing on the left wrist; move it to the right to wear it on the right wrist) without bumping up against the palm.

That way, you could actually put enough text onscreen to be able to read entire SMS or e-mail messages, or alerts, or alarms, or other notifications. And you'd be able to get more information from apps like RunKeeper or Endomondo. And you'd get more surface area for sensors for things like pulse, temp, etc; or for music info; or whatever.

Stop thinking in terms of "watch" and in terms of "extra screen with sensors" and it'll be easier to design
and understand uses.

Edit: Added bonus would be extra room for battery.

But M-S-G was not into the Toq at all. "Just one question: battery life? Waiting to find out during review. Also waiting for one actual feature I would want to use."